Yesterday the young Dutch player Lucas van Foreest finished on 7/9 in the Condigne Dutch Open. This was 1st equal on points, but GM Erwin l’Ami won on tiebreak. More significantly for Lucas, the score was enough for a final GM norm and gaining enough rating to push him over 2500. So that is the Grandmaster title at age 17. Congratulations!
So what is the Quality Chess connection? Three years ago Lucas was the joint winner of the quiz we ran about the 2015 World Cup, winning 20 free Quality Chess books.
So that’s the secret – get 20 Quality Chess books, become a grandmaster. Sadly, that’s not quite the full story. Lucas is clearly a hardworking and talented young man from a famous chess-playing family. Older brother Jorden is a GM and rated well over 2600, while their family website tells me their great grandfather A.E. van Foreest was Dutch Champion three times. And that’s just to mention three members of the family: there are more chessplayers. New quiz question: name a more impressive chess family?
In related news, and with a definite Quality Chess connection, a Chess24 tweet informs me that “Loek van Wely is also organising the Hoogeveen Chess tournament this year (21-27 October), when the matches will be: Svidler vs. Shankland & Jorden van Foreest vs. Fedoseev”
Sam Shankland is of course the author of Small Steps to Giant Improvement. And also US Champion.
Congratulations to the new GM Lucas van Foreest.
A few years ago I have played against the then 7 years old Machteld van Foreest in an open and while I won it was clear that she has a lot of talent too.
It is the same great grandfather who played again Steinitz ( 1896 ) and Euwe ( 1932 ) as quoted in the Woodpecker Method ?
No, I believe the Van Foreest in ‘The Woodpecker Method’ is Dirk, who was the elder brother of A.E. (or Arnold). Both Dirk and Arnold won the Dutch Championship three times. Of course Jorden has also been Dutch Champion.
Thanks John
congrats Lukas!!
quiz answer : Polgar family i think
That was my first thought as well. What about Horvath? Once a Hungarian team had only Horvath players in it. Only once, but still…
@marios
The Polgars seem the best contenders. It also gives me an excuse to mention Judit’s wonderful trilogy: http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/238/judit_polgar_trilogy_in_hardcover/
The Cramling family is also worth a mention.
I considered the GM ‘brothers’ Kiril and Krum Georgiev, but it seems they are not related.
Is there any case in the world that a parent and his/her kid are both GMs?
There’re some cases with GM+WGM or GM+IM but I am not sure if GM+GM exists. The one case I could think of is Potapov but I don’t know if they are related this way. If they aren’t then the closest are Zakhartsovs. Viacheslav is GM and his son Vladimir is 19 years old and IM rated 2490 so sooner or later he should get the title. But still, to me that’s an interesting observation it is not so common.
Father and son Kovalev are quite strong…. Or the Vovk brothers… and the Zhigalkos
Andrei + Yuri Vovk 2624 / 2564
Sergei + Andrei Zhigalko 2615 / 2558
Andrei + Vladislav Kovalev 2518 / 2667
I think nobody can beat the Lasker brothers. According to the historical ratings on chessmetrics.com Emanuel Lasker had a peak rating of 2878 (and was for a long term the #1 rated player in the world) and his older brother Berthold had a peak rating of 2683 (best place was #7 in the world ratings).
The father and son tandem, Tahir and Vakhidov Jahongir are both Grandmasters from Uzbekistan.
I didn’t know about Vakhidovs but I think GM Andrei Kovalev is not Vladislav’s father. As we can read on wikipedia ‘Vladislav Vladimirovich Kovalev’ that means his father name is Vladimir. Speaking of GM siblings there’re also Kosintsevas sisters.